


champion

by angelheartbeat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner Whump, Bruce Banner-centric, Heavy Angst, Introspection, Vomiting, Whump, bruce dealing with hulk and what he did, so i can do custom tags it just sucks, thats basically it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-24 15:59:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14358795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheartbeat/pseuds/angelheartbeat
Summary: Korg reveals to Bruce the truth of all that had happened while he'd been the Hulk, and Bruce does not take it well.





	champion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justtopostmyfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justtopostmyfic/gifts).



> suggested by justtopostmyfic so heres to u buddy  
> this is is a thique psa im always takin prompts and suggestions hmu
> 
> i like makin people suffer if that floats ur boat

"Hullo there, Grand Champion!"

Bruce glanced up at the cheery voice, hand pausing in where it had been skimming across the page, taking notes on the substances he'd been collecting from around the ship. Korg gave him a pleased grin, and he returned a weak smile, standing up from his work.

"Hey. Korg, right? I don't think we've been properly introduced."

"Thats me! And no, I don't think we have, but thats because for most of the time I knew you, you were a big green guy, and now you are definitely not."

"No, I'm not," Bruce chuckled.

"So I just thought, might as well come say hello. I have to say, your whole green guy thing is a neat little trick!"

"Hah. Thanks."

"I think that, maybe, we could have been quite good friends, on Sakaar. You're big and I'm big, you're green, well not right now, and I'm made of rocks, you get the idea, and if I hadn't been so scared of you killing me, I would have tried to make your friend! Somehow. From down in the freaky circle."

Bruce blinked a little, brain ceasing processing past  _scared of you killing me._ "What did you say?"

"Freaky circle! Yeah, your mate Thor thought it was quite weird too, but then he got to go to your fancy room, so-"

"No, before that. You were scared of me killing you?"

"Oh, yeah. It was quite legendary, you know? Anyone who faces the Grandmaster's champion perishes. Spooky!"

"Perishes..?"

"Thats what I said! Usually painfully. I think you were quite brutal, really. But the Grandmaster liked it!"

There was a roaring in Bruce's ears, blocking out the rambling. "Wait, Thor said we fought. Are you saying I could have killed him?"

"For a while, we all thought that you had! You're a real beast, Mr Champion."

Pushing back his chair, Bruce gave Korg a weak smile, forcing himself to keep it together. "I'm sorry, Korg, I have to go. I can talk to you later."

Utterly oblivious, Korg waved as Bruce hurried out of the room. "Bye, Champion!"

As soon as Bruce was out of the room and a good way down the corridor - blissfully empty - he allowed himself to stop and lean on the wall a bit, hyperventilating.

Oh god. Hulk had killed people before, and he preferred not to think about that, but they had almost always been enemies, people who wanted to do him harm. From what he had gathered about the Contest of Champions, the vast majority of competitors, if not everyone, were unwilling and innocent.

Oh god.  _Oh god._

He had almost killed Thor, and he had no fucking idea. The god had brushed it off as a harmless scuffle, but he was suddenly rethinking whether that was just a tactic to keep his pulse low.

His pulse definitely wasn't low right now, and he could feel Hulk growing restless, grumbling and growling behind his eyes.

Over the rushing in his ears, he heard whispering, and managed to glance up, in order to see some Asgardian kids staring at him with wide eyes and curious faces. He smiled weakly at them and quickly turned tail, stumbling as fast as he could to get to his room, where he could freak out in peace.

Luckily, he hadn't been far from it, and before long he was barricaded safely in his room, clenching and unclenching his fists desperately.

Oh,  _god._

In all honesty, he knew very little about Sakaar, having spent most of his time as Banner there panicked and dazed, overwhelmed with the feed of new information. He knew that it was ruled by the Grandmaster and that he had been the Champion, but he had always assumed it was a sport, almost. Harmless fights, to let off steam. A low rumble sounded in his head.

_Hulk **win.**_

A wave of nausea rushed to the surface and Bruce doubled over, retching and puking into a trash can in the corner of his room at the realisation that Hulk had  _enjoyed_ this.

He'd always been under the impression that while, yeah, Hulk was the manifestation of his rage, his own pacifistic nature dulled the edge of aggression, meaning that (excluding the first time he had turned, which he carefully blocked out most of the time) Hulk was generally careful about hurting  _people._

But no. He'd enjoyed this - enjoyed murdering for sport, just because it netted him attention and hot tubs and an escape from, well, Bruce.

He almost felt guilty. He locked away Hulk each and every day, tried to tamp him down as best he could, keep himself calm and chilled and not act on the anger constantly bubbling in his veins. He was scared of Hulk, if he was honest.

And now he knew that he had  _such a fucking valid reason to be._

Hulk was, in theory, an extension of Bruce himself, the manifestation of his anger and childhood trauma given a physical form, and the implications of that rang through his head and wracked his body with physical shudders, wringing more vomit out of his stomach - but it was less vomit and more bile, burning his throat and making his eyes sting with tears.

If Hulk was an extension of Bruce, and Hulk had enjoyed the fighting and the murder, did that by association make Bruce the sociopathic killer he'd always feared he'd turn out to be?

He didn't think he had anything left in his stomach to give as he dropped to his knees, eyes stinging harshly with the effort to keep himself from bursting into tears like a baby. Somehow, he managed to crawl to his bed and lay curled up, shuddering and shaking.

As soon as he wanted to start crying with the guilt and the shame of it all, his eyes, of course, dried up completely, meaning he just stared at the wall, hearing his own breathing.

He felt disgusting, dirty, like he could feel the blood of all those poor competitors soaking him, drowning him. 

 _Two years._ Two years he'd been gone, floating in the depths of his own mind, detached from any kind of body, entrapped within himself, locked tight and curled up in the trunk of a car, not an inch of sunlight in sight.

How many people had he killed in that time? How many people had he mercilessly smashed, uncaring of their home or family or who they were at all? How much damage had he done and how had he, how had Hulk, how had the Other Guy not given even a single green shit?

_Hulk, **win!**_

_Yeah, I fucking gathered that, you great big ugly murderous monster,_ Bruce screamed in his head, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes and digging his half-bitten nails into his scalp. There was a slightly more subdued grumble from Hulk, and Bruce almost laughed.

_Oh, so now you fucking listen to me? Now that puny Banner is actually the one in charge? Not when you were out there trapping me for two years and killing for fun just so you could get an escape from everyone fucking hating you? Well guess what! They fucking hate me too, and I'm not about to go about killing everyone for some douchebag just because it makes me feel a touch better about YOU!_

Suddenly deflated, Bruce rubbed furiously at his eyes and removed his hands from his face, but his body remained tense and coiled like a spring. He felt like he could just blow up at any moment. Really, he was living up to his name of  _ticking time bomb._

He didn't know how long passed as he lay there, body tensed, staring at the wall and thinking about what a shitty person he was. It was an uncomfortably familiar position.

He just kept turning his thoughts over and over, round and round, unable to get them to cease or at least stop repeating, even for a moment. He hated that he did this, that he would focus far too hard on just a few words and be unable to break himself from the vicious cycle his brain decided he'd be partaking in today.

But he just... he'd always been so  _careful._ He had spent so long perfecting the art of keeping himself under control, making sure his pulse was slow and his stress levels were as low as they could be. But this was a prime example of he'd lost control. He wasn't even sure where he had been for those past two years - not in his body, that was for fucking sure. And he knew where  _Hulk_ had been.

A horrifying thought dawned on Bruce just as he began to untense a tiny bit. He'd Hulked out for the battle against Hela. He'd given up the control again.

_Hulk could have killed people on this very ship._

A panicked whimper escaped Bruce's lips. What if Hulk had decided he'd missed the bloodshed of Sakaar and turned to the nearest vulnerable person to smash, rather than the wolf like he was intending? What if he had killed innocent Asgardians who were just trying to escape the already-half-destroyed remains of their home? What if he had killed Valkyrie? What if he had - well, he was pretty sure Loki would kill him without a second thought, but that didn't mean he wanted to kill _him_!

Oh god, what if he'd killed Thor?

 _For a while, we all thought that you had!_ Korgs voice spoke cheerfully in Bruce's head and he could have screamed, if he wasn't so wary of alerting anyone outside that he was freaking out. He knew Thor was strong, he could handle most things thrown at him, but Hulk at his full strength, and with the obedience disc Thor had grumbled about at length...

It was too awful to think about. So, naturally, Bruce's brain decided to make it his primary thought.

Thor, his best friend and fellow Avenger, and oh god  _oh god, what would the Avengers think of him?_

They were already wary of him, he knew that. He was volatile and turbulent and didn't blame them. But the news that he had been a violent and ruthless murderer, and  _enjoyed it-_

 _Hulk's not you,_ the rational part of his brain supplied.  _You've become separate beings at this point._

_Yeah, but I let him take over!_

_No, you didn't, he just managed to gain control of his own accord._

_I'm a murderer, I'm a murderer, I'm a mur-_

_Shut the fuck up._ his logical brain said firmly, but Bruce was well and truly spiraling, his logic becoming drowned under panic and stress and the tears now flowing freely from his squeezed-shut eyes. It took everything in his effort to keep the now-furious Hulk from emerging, much as it would be easier to do so. He couldn't take the risk. It had taken so, so much effort to force himself to turn back into  _himself_ after the battle with Hela, and he was terrified of losing himself to green and terror and being locked in the trunk.

Eventually, he couldn't fight it anymore. He could feel his brain folding in on itself, shutting down in preparation for Hulk to throw it around and destroy.

Distantly, he could feel himself already regretting what he was about to do, even as it took immense effort to flip off his bed and fling the door open, and yell Thor's name at the top of his lungs, turning the heads of the Asgardians nearby.

He could already feel his muscles shifting and growing, falling into the agony of transformation. Within a few minutes, which could have been centuries with the pain he was feeling, Thor appeared at his door.  _Thank fuck for Asgardian hearing._

"Banner! What happened? Are you alright?" Thor asked, concern etched into every inch of his face at the sight before him - Bruce doubled over, face ashen and sweaty, skin tinged with green and green running through his veins, his body shifting and cracking.

"You.. have to... restrain me," Bruce panted, looking up at Thor with fear and anger and sorrow and every emotion running through his head, like the liquid ice that burned like fire coursing around his body, making his skin itch and burn. He could see the fear on Thor's face even as his fingers crackled with determined lightning. "Don't let me... hurt.. anyone. Please."

Thor nodded, swallowing down the concern rising in his throat. 

Unable to hold it off any longer, Bruce allowed the transformation to begin proper, and looked up to meet Thor's eye for the last time in... well, god knew how long the Hulk would keep control this time. Maybe forever.

"I'm sorry," he managed, even as fear broiled in his gut and the agony shifted into inhumanly-possible-to-live-through.  _Good thing he wasn't truly human, then._

 _God, I'm so sorry,_ was his last thought, and he had no chance to say it before darkness clouded his vision and he heard a roar that wasn't his, and then he was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @thoriffic i am a hoot  
> (the link wouldn't work)
> 
> this ended so different to how I planned but I Like it
> 
> comment or youll b cursed


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